


Only in my dreams

by polychromos



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bruce Banner Is a Good Bro, Dreaming, Engineer Tony Stark, Failed Marriage, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Lonely Tony Stark, M/M, Poor Tony Stark, Tags will be added, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-12 23:40:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7128719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polychromos/pseuds/polychromos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a poor engineer who is tired of his terribly boring life, Tony feels urged to change something. Yet he has no idea how, but maybe the world in his dreams can show him the way out of his gray everyday life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"Captain, I've got the location", Tony said as he was having clear view over New York City's shiny skyscrapers, inside of his latest armor that let him look like a red bolt cutting through the morning air. He picked up his speed as he heard the Captain's voice over the speaker of his earpiece, an all too familiar rush of endorphins bubbling up in his chest. He felt free up here, unbound and more alive than ever.  
He loved going out to catch the bad guys, especially with Steve. They really were a good team, even though it didn't look like it firsthand. They had an endless game of teasing, fighting for dominance with words and eyes, so they could stare endlessly at each other intensely if none of the Avengers team would get between them to end their glaring session. But all arguments and mockery aside, Steve was always there to hold his back. Just like now, as Tony took a turn to reach the facility where he spotted their target, watching Steve to get in position, his red, white and blue shield held close to his body. Now Tony only had to break them a way through the walls, so he aimed at the weakest spot his high tech systems showed him and shot--

\--falling off the couch at the loud noise of his alarm clock exploding right next to his ear.  
With a groggy groan, Tony pulled himself up on the ragged cushions, rubbing his throbbing temples where the last bits of his blissful dream faded and exchanged with the usual morning grumpiness. Knowing that he wouldn't get back to his favorite place before falling asleep again left Tony even more bitter as he padded off to the bathroom to get ready for the day. A normal, completely boring day like every day before and every day that would come after this one. Halfheartedly, Tony moved the toothbrush in his mouth while watching his pathetic self in the mirror. His face didn't look like he has slept before, the dark circles under his eyes greeted him every morning and didn't even have the decency to go away. It was almost like a ritual. Alarm, bathroom, toothbrushing, showering, dressing, breakfast. Work. Tony hated work. Not because of what he had to do there but what he couldn't do.  
As a simple car engineer, Tony's income was barely enough to even keep up paying the rent of his shaggy apartment together with the one person that dropped his mood to ground zero as the glorious completion of the morning before he went off to work: his wife.  
Over the last years they have lived together Tony had seen may couples come and go, separating, breaking and making every garden party to a shitshow, so everyone present was witnessing their spectacular breakup. Tony hated them. These couples were just like two lightbulbs breaking apart and what was left were two single dull stumps with glass shards all around them. But the fact that Tony saw himself building cracks only left him as uncaring as he was about the lightbulbs that were already broken. 

"Good morning", he mumbled as he entered the small kitchen and grabbed a mug to shove it into the coffee machine and pressed the button before its noise swallowed the quiet mutter from Shauna Stark who sat at the tiny, overloaded kitchen table, nibbling on a dry piece of buttered toast. If there was one thing left he had in common with her it would be the loveliness of a house dragon in the morning. Their conversation ended with this and with an unreturned kiss on her cheek, Tony fetched his car keys and went off to the next stage of his incredibly unspectacular day routine called 'SHIELD gas station'.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I actually update this after eternity, yay! I hope you have some fun with it anyway. x

After Tony froze his ass off in his car while driving to the gas station since it didn't have a radiator, nor a functional air conditioner in summer, he parked his car in the lot next to the workshop and headed inside. The unpleasantly rustled sound of an old radio playing some lame song of the 80s approached him, along with the noise of a cordless screwdriver.  
With a heavy sigh he started his work with setting up his station. Usually Tony had three full tool boxes ready that emptied with every passing hour and filled his workbench instead where he dropped the tools when he didn't need them, rather than putting them back into their boxes. But although he didn't put the tools in a particular place, in the end of the day the table always looked the same. Very messy, but still the same.

"Good morning to you, too," he heard from behind himself and almost staggered when he turned around to have a steaming mug shoved into his hands. "Is it my birthday or something or did you just make me a cup of coffee?", Tony asked dryly, but took a sip of his personal fuel with gratefulness. Bruce rolled his eyes at the blatant question of his friend, but it was a gesture Tony was very much used to. "I thought it would be nice to do my friend a favor before he starts a sleeping session on his workbench", Bruce said casually, but there was a small hint of concern in the look he gave Tony. At that, he just responded with slapping a good fake smile over his face before Bruce could dig any deeper. "Hey, I mean, that's what coffee's there for, right?" And with that, he emptied the mug in one rush, burned his tongue on a second degree and shoved it into Bruce's hands to resume his preparations. His friend left without another word. He knew the effects of sleeping issues all too well, so Tony didn't have to hear any hypocritical nonsense about his dark circles or how good chamomile tea and warm milk helped to get sleep.

It wasn't until midday as the first customer got to the workshop. Their broken tire and a dented front spoiler occupied Tony, so he didn't even notice the next one coming in. As suddenly someone talked to him, Tony nearly hit his head on the car be was laying under. He moved back on his rolling bench and got up, fetching a dirty cloth to get the motor oil off his hands and eventually dropped it as he saw who his new customer was. Tony didn't know if his mouth stood open or not, but something on his face must have looked quite stupid as his opposite looked at him questioningly. Quickly trying to get a grip on himself, he took the extended hand to not look like even more idiotic than he already did. But who could blame him?  
The hand he was absently shaking belonged to someone Tony thought only existed in his dreams. The tall, blond man smiled at him politely and Tony was left so numb he was overhearing his greeting. These bright blue eyes made his little engineer heart flutter and he didn't even care if it was actually possible that he could feel this way about someone who just walked into his workshop for the first time.  
"I was hoping if you could take a look at it?", the man said and this was actually what finally brought Tony back to the ground. He blinked repeatedly to focus again. "Excuse me, at what?"   
"My motor. It's a miracle that I got the car even running this morning. It didn't work the whole last week and I was almost afraid I'd have to pay the breakdown service, too."   
Tony wanted to cry in joy as he saw the man's small VW bug, already rusted on the surface here and there, but still a beautiful little piece of German engineering. It was too pure, too sweet to be true.   
He walked around the car, looked it over and trailed a hand over its low roof. "Poor, little thing.. C'mon, tell me. What's wrong?"   
Only then Tony realized that he wasn't alone and blushed deeply at the man next to him. But there wasn't any sign of mockery in his face, more a heart-warming amusement sparkling in those crystal blue eyes, a look Tony had never gotten before.  
He cleared his throat and opened the cowling to have a look at the engine. A first look at it and Tony found himself overflown with sympathy for the old car. Many fragile cables lacked isolation or were rusted, as  
much as the surface of the motor itself. Brown powder of the rotten metal trickled down from it as Tony ran a hand over it slightly. The decades this vehicle carried on its back were taking their toll on nearly every part that kept it running. But Tony wouldn't be Tony if he didn't try to keep the spirit of this old little pearl alive.  
He looked up at Steve with a rueful smile. "Gonna take me a while. She's old, but I'll see what I can do."

"She?" A twitch of light eyebrows upwards and a wonderful small smile appeared on the other man's face. Tony blushed again. "Uh, yeah", he murmured in embarrassment, running a nervous hand over his lower arm. God, keep it together, Stark. "I often attach genders to objects, don't mind it at all", he added, trying to make it sound less stupid than it already was. Mr. Stars-and-Stripes just shook his head with a smile.

"I see. I don't mind, don't worry about it. I'm happy that you can make 'her' run again. I'm hanging on this car quite much." 

Tony nodded absently, rubbing his hands into the cloth he was still holding. "I'm just not sure when I'll get done with it. A week for sure." He muttered.  
"That's fine", the blond said friendly. "I can give you my number, so you can keep me updated about it."  
A moment later Tony had a piece of paper with blondie's name and a phone number added to the dirty cloth in his hands.  
And he had to say, even the 'g' in 'Steve Rogers' was written like a tiny artwork compared to anything he could look at right now.

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it to the end, congratulations. You made it to the notes of my first attempt to write a fanfiction, ever.  
> I got this nice prompt from a friend and I wanted to try something new, so maybe this is going to be a longer thing as far as I get good feedback.
> 
> Since English is not my native language I'd love to know if anyone were interested to be my beta-reader and if you find any mistakes while reading, please let me know.
> 
> Anyway, have a nice day, you beautiful people!


End file.
